NZ headed for a Triple Dip Recession – well this is what happens when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy and the Average Joe gets F**k All, I work in the retail fresh fruit and vegetable trade and your Average Joe does not have any surplus cash to put fresh fruit and vegetables on the table after they have paid the rent. Re Tax Cuts I get an extra $15.00 per week on a salary of $50k, not enough to put much extra fruit and vegetables on the table. Meanwhile our PM Christopher Luxton gets an additional $18k per annum, equivalent to $346.00 per week if I am correct. It ain't Rocket Science why we have poverty in NZ and the lower socio-economic groups are struggling. This poverty is also a factor driving Crime here in NZ, however most of the Poly's here in NZ have their heads in the sand like Ostrich's.
Not only $18K extra, but he can continue to take off mortgage interest payments of any investment properties he owns off his tax. With a property investment portfolio of $7mi, that's quite a bit of moolah.
Speaking of "when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy", the gummint saw fit to give "charity" status to billion dollar corporations, which means they don't pay a cent in tax. Two of these corporations are Ngai Tahu and Tainui. We also see these corporations extorting other business that need to re-apply for resource consent and have to pay the Taniwha tens of millions to billions of dollars for the privilege. Guess who ultimately pays for these excesses? Those that can least afford it as the costs are passed on, not absorbed by the business being extorted.
9 dead, hundreds wounded after another wave of device explosions in Lebanon
Israel's defence minister declares 'a new phase in the war'
The Associated Press · Posted: Sep 18, 2024 11:13 AM EDT | Last Updated: 14 minutes ago
Walkie-talkies and solar equipment exploded in Beirut and multiple parts of Lebanon on Wednesday in an apparent second wave of attacks targeting electronic devices,……
There is a growing number of lithium battery fires on aircraft. These incidents range from localized and limited fires to large, uncontrollable in-flight fires…..
Thanks to the Israeli Butchers exploding pagers and two way radios, a huge issue has appeared for the tech and device industry and by obvious implication for users and the authorities.
International supply lines are involved in the production of devices, lines that can now be seen able to be breached for nefarious purposes. Will air carriers get the shakes about mobiles on board? Will any number of businesses look sideways at mobiles on their premises…will mobile users (say Palestine solidarity supporters) themselves become wary…
After todays attacks it doesn't seem like it's sabotage of equipment. It's just too many different types of devices – it's just seems like too wide-ranging a supply line to infiltrate.
In my opinion, it is most likely that they have changed some firmware code controlling battery controllers.
Battery controllers for rechargeable batteries are finicky things, pretty complex code lumps of code to control charging, discharging, and temperature responses. It isn’t that hard to remove safeguards if you read the programming manuals. The last manual I read on a battery controller for Lithium ion batteries was about 200 pages of dense settings.
I have blown up one Lithium ion batteries by accident during charging when I have been writing settings for a battery controller.
I don’t imagine that it is that hard to force a fast discharge causing a high temperatures. Probably targeting one of the families of battery controllers firmware. And modern batteries have extremely high energy densities.
All that would be required is to write code to talk to a controller, get it installed in a pager over the radio as a update, auto-install it, and then provide a online trigger to initiate it.
In my opinion, it is most likely that they have changed some firmware code controlling battery controllers.
Odds that the culprits inserted modified batteries into the supply chain?
What do we know about Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions?
The walkie-talkies that exploded had new batteries that had arrived in a recent shipment and had been distributed to a narrower range of Hezbollah members than the pagers, people familiar with the matter said. Hezbollah members said some of the explosions on Wednesday were stronger than those in the pager attack. Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people were killed and more than 300 were wounded in Wednesday’s explosions.
This would make any and every device a potential bomb.
.
B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
Urrgh. The worst possible case. Explode and that will thermally overload the battery which would also burn of explode. I'd guess that they would trigger through a signal from the radio device passed to the battery controller. You'd just have to hook up one of the many extra lines to the controller.
The batteries are also hermetically sealed against leakage from the battery cells. So you wouldn't get a explosive smell trace. The seal is also designed to expand because that is what lithium batteries do as they deteriorate – that would help to make the explosion more violent from containment.
“This might well be the first and frightening glimpse of a world in which ultimately no electronic device, from our cellphones to thermostats, can ever be fully trusted,” Glenn Gerstell, the general counsel of the National Security Agency for five critical years as the cyberwars heated up, said on Wednesday.
“We’ve already seen Russia and North Korea unleash cyberweapons over which they had no control, which indiscriminately damaged random computers around the globe,” he said. “Could other personal and household devices be next?”
If Mr. Gerstell is right, it raises the question of whether these attacks, widely attributed to Israel’s intelligence services, were worth the price in our shared sense of vulnerability. The explosions had little strategic purpose. As one Western diplomat with long experience dealing with the Middle East said, they were hardly about to force Hezbollah’s leaders to give up a cause they have battled over for four decades.
My brain kind of switches off as soon as I read a manual but I do like how people have skills like this. Not for what happened here, but it's interesting.
War is just very sad all round and unbearable in many regards. We are the 1% when compared to so many countries and I wish we spent more time appreciating it – rather than being gaslit into poverty and culture wars by some in power.
If I were in Lebanon I wouldn't want to be carrying around a cellphone in my pocket right now or getting near a television or computer.
I feel that the Israelis have something else planned and I'm sure it won't be pleasant.
But it does raise the question: what else can be tampered with to cause injury and destruction? and what if Putin and Kim Jung Un got hold of the means to do this?
I am sure it is a preemptive strike, either to disrupt Hazbollah plans if they were about to do something, or to prepare for an Israeli invasion, as Ad points out below.
Either way, looking beyond the nastiness of it, it is a very effective strategy in either scenario.
…..International supply lines are involved in the production of devices, lines that can now be seen able to be breached for nefarious purposes….
Will there be any international investigation into how and where these supply lines were breached?
Will any effort be made to identify the operatives who carried out this so called "sensitive operation"?
Will anyone be held accountable?
Like so many other Zionist atrocities before it, will Israel's impunity see this latest atrocity being deliberately and systematically swept under the carpet?
Will the news cycle move on?|
Despite the dire implications of this new form of warfare will this shocking event go uninvestigated?
Where were, and how were, the supply line breaches made?
Is it possible for Russia to call on its Chinese ally to help it launch a similar attack against Ukraine?
15 Nov 2023 — In 2022, the production volume of mobile phones in China amounted to almost 1.6 billion units. China was the largest smartphone producer worldwide.
Well, American top security people are very tight lipped at the moment as to implicating Israel, I’m just following media channel reports so far, but it appears a batch of Taiwanese pagers were sent to a possibly bogus Hungarian company set up by Mossad to do the explosive installs.
Will anyone be held accountable–yes, but not the Israeli butchers!
I'm reading it as a an Israeli controlled front did the deal to supply devices manufactured and sold by a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting, which had a license to use the Taiwanese brand on the pagers.
To add to the mystery here's another story from a former Israeli operative with the 'secret Israeli weapons division’ describing the preparation:
“… we know that those pagers came out of a factory in Hungary, but it might be that those pagers left the factory in their original condition. But then maybe the customs diverted it, a delay for a couple of days because of customs issues, and then the [operations team] took care of [inserting the booby trapped devices]. It might be that the European company is an innocent company”.”
To add to the mystery here's another story from a former Israeli operative…..
“… we know that those pagers came out of a factory in Hungary, but it might be that those pagers left the factory in their original condition. But then maybe the customs diverted it,….”
Fascinating article.
Fascinating?
Sounds, a little more like misdirection to me.
If this wasn't a misdirection, which country's customs service is this anonymous spook alluding to?
Hungary? Lebanon?
Were the customs officers allegedly involved, bribed or coerced by Mosad, and no other customs employees in their dempartment noticed?
The other alternative, the customs officers were ordered to divert these pagers by their government employer?
And nobody in the government bureaucracy's chain of command, who may have been a little bit uncomfortable at this order, got wind of this operation and leaked it?
Really?
Smells like bullshit to me.
Just a little too convenient, and a way bit far fetched.
We have one name: Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono
From the link supplied by Matiri:
"….the single owner of BAC is named as Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono. The company's most recent annual accounts, signed in May of this year, record a balance sheet of slightly more than $320."
$320?
Fancy that. A not for profit electronics company that only makes pagers.
Can we expect that a certain 'Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono', is being sought by interpol for questioning, with her description at every airport?
Probably not.
Israel's impunity makes sure that Western authorities including police and security forces will look the other way.
…..her company’s website – which went offline on Wednesday morning – her work was described as “bridging technology and innovation from Asia”. The firm’s address was registered to a residential-looking two-storey building in Budapest, with its name posted on the glass door on an A4 sheet.
I consider that a handful of ex Mossad and related agency officers know a damn sight more than you or I how Mossad operates. That was the intent of the item I linked to. Nothing more nor less.
You on the other hand have chosen to interpret it as a pro-Mossad piece rather than an educative and factual piece of writing which was both informative and revealing.
"……a handful of ex Mossad and related agency officers know a damn sight more than you or I how Mossad operates…." Anne
I am sure they do. I am also pretty sure that they are very unlikely to tell us.how they operate.
"You on the other hand have chosen to interpret it as a pro-Mossad piece" Anne
No, I just think that their version is unlikely, And I said why.
I think it is unlikely that Customs officers were bribed or coerced to divert a shipment of pagers without it being noticed by someone else. Even more so, if they were ordered to do so by their superiors.
I might add that more and more and evidence is leading back to BAC, rather than border Customs of some unamed country.
However, I would be interested to look at anythiing Mossad comes up with, that they wan to to add, to back up their vierson, that it was Customs.
Which Customs? Of which Country? would be a good start.
But all jokes aside, under international law, boobytrapping civilian devices is a war crime.
The ICC prosecutor Karim Khan may yet be adding another name to his list of alleged war criminals that he has applied to the ICC for arrest warrants for.
AP — The woman whose company was linked to thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria this week is under the protection of the Hungarian secret services, her mother told The Associated Press on Friday.
Lebanon is a not a signatory to the Rome Statute, but Hungary is.
Presumably if an arrest warrant for Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono is issued, the Hungarian secret service would have to hand her over to the Hague for trial.
So will the weird individual with the Hollywood film star looks, and the double barralled surname, and the padded CV, ever see the inside of a court room?
“Our country takes the case very seriously,” said the prosecutors office from Taipei’s Shilin district in a statement Friday.
While the Taiwanese authorities may be taking this act of terrorism seriously, the authorities of the Western powers, not so much.
The ICC while swift to act to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching freight train load of Western disaproval to any challenge to Israel's impunity, the ICC have become paralysed. A paralysis from which they may never salvage enough credibility to ever issue an arrest warrant against anyone ever again, not even Yahya Sinwar.
9/11 was to provoke the PNAC to action, because they needed regime change to create the vacuum for Islamic State (but Iran backed Shia rule Iraq and Syria now – what a defeat for both al Qaeda and PNAC).
Today the divide is between those who want Israeli permanent rule of the WB and defeat of Israel. Will both lose, if there is a two state peace?
Some good news for Aucklanders with an electricity account, the Entrust dividend of $350 is being paid over the next few days. If you receive it by direct credit, it may be in your bank a/c now. Some people have it credited to their electricity a/c.
I want them to spend more $$$ undergrounding power lines instead of carving out big "V for Vector" cuts in the middle of the street trees to maintain the required clearances for the power lines. It is a tragedy that they did not piggyback off the other works being done on Hendon Ave with the new housing developments there. The street trees are great and an important part of the streetscape.
Pity about the network having $12m foregone infrastructure investment for ticket clippers who do absolutely zero toward the security of electricity supply get reelected.
It looks to me that the exploding communication devices amongst Hezbollah operatives is a preemptive strike.
From what I have read, Hezbollah received the pagers about five months ago. Perhaps the Israelis set this up so they could disrupt Hezbollah's plans if they were about to do something major.
This type of action is within the Israeli MO. For example in the Six Day War the Israelis undertook a preemptive strike against the Egyption air force and took out most of their planes befoe they even got off the ground.
You don't make the move of blinding your enemy unless you're preparing for war.
Israel's 98th Division is now on the border, and is believed to include thousands of troops, including paratrooper infantry units and artillery and elite commando forces specially trained for operations behind enemy lines.
7 October will be the 1-year anniversary. Under 3 weeks from now.
Blinding the enemy in the middle of the fight would be an ace up the sleeve, too.
Israel decided to blow up the pager devices carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday out of concern its secret operation might have been discovered by the group, three U.S. officials told Axios.
You don't make the move of blinding your enemy unless you're preparing for war…..
I intend to agree, this has all the hallmarks of a classic, 'softening up operation'
…..the process of preparing a target for an attack by weakening its defenses or capabilities before the main assault occurs. This can involve various tactics, such as:
Artillery Bombardment: Using artillery or air strikes to destroy or damage enemy positions, equipment, or fortifications.
Psychological Operations: Conducting operations aimed at demoralizing the enemy or creating confusion.
Surveillance and Reconnaissance: Gathering intelligence to identify vulnerabilities in the target's defenses.
This attack seems to have combined all four of these various softening up tactics.
Step #1. May not have exactly been an artillery attack, sometimes it's not. But it did involve explosives.
In WW1 and the American Civil War, tunnels were sometimes secretly dug under enemy lines and packed with explosives, That were detonated to soften up a target just before the main assault. This attack is not too disimilar. differing only in not lieterally being an underground operation.
Steps, 2, 3, and 4 are selfe explanatory, and were all achieved by this one assualt.
The Israelis got intell a year before the Oct 7 attack. Those above said it was too ambitious for Hamas to realise. 6 months before they got intell of Hamas training for the attack. Again it was dismissed.
The biggest intelligence and IDF failure in their history.
The attack came 50 years after 1973 (Yom Kippur war – they knew an attack was coming – but the Americans said if they acted first they would not be supplied with arms).
An attack 50 years later fits the black September timing of attacks at "harvest time" because of the nature of the Jewish calendar (Sept/Oct harvest month – and there is historic significance to Oct 7 as well, in 2023 the first sabbath day after sukkoth – ending on the Friday Oct 6).
For mine, this is a pre-empting of any Hezbollah attack on Oct 7 2024, or Sukkoth later in the month.
Bravado 101, a warning that any war will involve stuff Iran has not warned them about. Iran itself, not being a safe place for pro Hamas Arabs to visit.
As our local fan of all things Rainbow (Dec 2016 UNSC decision hate speech against McCully) puts it.
Hezbollah is recognised as a terrorist entity by over 60 countries including the EU, UK, US, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
People sometimes forget that many Arabs (and Turks) see Iran as having a hegemon ambition, exploiting Israel to pose as leader of the Moslem world. The Arab League (and Turkey) position is now a two state outcome, Iran is the outlier.
There got to be more than what matches the eye here. Hamas have apparently had them for 5 months but it stretches the imagination that no one has changed a battery or tried to fix one and gone ‘ hang on, what’s this ‘ , 5 months and thousands of devices.. makes no sense. Also the sabotaging of household battery walls is just shitfuckery of the highest order.
…but it stretches the imagination that no one has changed a battery or tried to fix one and gone ‘ hang on, what’s this ‘ , 5 months and thousands of devices.. makes no sense.
It was probably code that sets the settings on the battery controller chip (or any power controller chip). Those things come in families and they get used in a wide variety of devices. Almost every device that stores and releases power uses controller chips or boards to make sure that the power in charged or discharged at a safe rate and that their energy store doesn’t overheat.
In lithium-ion type batteries, every one that you plug into a device has a battery controller of a particular type or type family inside the battery casing. It carries the settings allowing safe charging, discharging, and temperatures. You can typically reprogram those settings from code in the device itself.
It is usual to update code on most remote devices via comms. I’ve written a lot of code using internet, wifi, bluetooth, satellite, radio, ethernet, usb, jtag and just straight serial to update devices. Pretty hard to find a nasty even if you actually have the source code and compile it yourself. That is why remote updates or installation need a secure review / build / supply chain.
The internet is full of videos of lithium batteries bursting into fire, (which may be what gave Mossad the idea) Many of these fires have been caused by incorrect charging. ie using a different brand charger for a different brand battery. Proving the point that incorect charging parameters that could possibly be altered remotely, could cause communication devices with these batteries to catch fire.
But Mossad may have wanted more.
Rather than just catching fire, BBC footage shows percussive explosions. Which lends credence to the speculation that a small amount of high explosive had been inserted into these devices.
Adding more weight to the theory that explosives were inserted in these devices.
From AP, despite quoting an anonymous source, to make this report. AP are considered an authoritive journal of record AP. So I give it some weight. But make of it what you will. Personally I don’t think the journos whose names I have left in, are trying to mislead us. Like most journalists I know they are trying to do a good job to the best of their ability. Often under trying circumstances. Often they can’t reveal the identity of their sources.
(Generally, whenever I post a link, I try to mak a point to include the names of real people authors, and journos, I do this because I don't believe the conspiracy theorists that all journalists working in the Mainstream Media are corruptted liars.)
NEW YORK (AP) — Just one day after pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded, more electronic devices detonated in Lebanon Wednesday in what appeared to be a second wave of sophisticated, deadly attacks that targeted an extraordinary number of people….
…..An American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — where small amounts of explosives hidden in the pagers were detonated.
Can we expect a blanket ban on all electronic devices being taken on to planes?
The current CAA rules:
You can take a maximum of 15 portable electronic devices with you. If you want to carry more you must get approval from your airline.
It's okay to use your laptop, tablet or cellphone onboard, but please follow onboard crew instructions on when you can cannot use these devices.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 cellphone are prohibited as there have been occasions where they have spontaneously burst into flame causing significant burn injuries.
Earbuds charging pod [case] are a type of power bank they can go in your carry-on bag but must not go in check-in luggage under any circumstances.
After 9/11 when box cutters were used to hijack planes and bring down the Twin Towers, you weren't even allowed to take nail clippers with you on to a plane,
When every portable device is now a potential bomb, will we see the same sort of blanket ban?
1 day ago — Qatar Airways said the PETN bomb "could not be detected by x-ray screening or trained sniffer dogs".
….I have several cell phones, tablets, walkie talkies, laptops, and more, which recent events have me wondering about the safety of.
Is there a way I can determine if someone in the supply chain has tampered with them such that they can be remotely detonated?
In the recent pager detonations I believe it was determined that Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) was inside the pagers. I haven't heard the same about walkie talkies, but I'm cautiously assuming the mechanism was similar
According to that wikipedia page on PETN[1]:
Both parcels in the 2010 cargo plane bomb plot were x-rayed without the bombs being spotted. Qatar Airways said the PETN bomb "could not be detected by x-ray screening or trained sniffer dogs". The Bundeskriminalamt received copies of the Dubai x-rays, and an investigator said German staff would not have identified the bomb either. New airport security procedures followed in the U.S., largely to protect against PETN.
If these are undetectable by dogs, is there any method to detect explosive chemicals, such as detection strips, that are available to consumers?
Can we expect a blanket ban on all electronic devices being taken on to planes?
Probably.
.
Beirut airport and some Middle East airlines have banned passengers from carrying certain electronic devices following the shock attacks on electronic devices in Lebanon which left 32 dead and thousands badly injured.
Lebanon's aviation authority said on Thursday that all passengers would be barred from carrying walkie-talkies and pagers on flights from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport.
It’s certainly a massive security breach for Hezbullah and Hamas, I could imagine a handful of devices being swapped for ones with the explosive device, but numbers are in the thousands. Now today we are hearing about other communications devices exploding.
If Israel were to invade southern Lebanon, It would make sense for the Israelis to control the pagers and communication equipment remotely, while intercepting messages and feeding misinformation, not destroying them.
This is something different, it may be part of an internal civil war within Hezbollah and other Palestinian organisations. There will be other regional players involved, not including the US, China, Russia or the UK.
We all know that the US backs Israel, and takes the flak accordingly.
So how is it that Iran gets a free pass. They’re the ones supporting, and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. With Iran’s avowed intent to wipe Israel off the face of the map, is it surprising that Israel takes the fight to their proxies?
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Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
President Trump on the day he announced tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, unleashing a shock to supply chains globally that is expected to slow economic growth and increase inflation for most large economies. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 9 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 3Politics: New Zealand Government cabinet meeting usually held early afternoon with post-cabinet news conference possible at 4 pm, although they have not been ...
Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
What seems to be the common theme in the US, NZ, Argentina and places like Italy under their respective rightwing governments is what I think of as “the politics of cruelty.” Hate-mongering, callous indifference in social policy-making, corporate toadying, political bullying, intimidation and punching down on the most vulnerable with ...
If you are confused, check with the sunCarry a compass to help you alongYour feet are going to be on the groundYour head is there to move you aroundSo, stand in the place where you liveSongwriters: Bill Berry / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe / Peter Buck.Hot in the CityYesterday, ...
Shane Jones announced today he would be contracting out his thinking to a smarter younger person.Reclining on his chaise longue with a mouth full of oysters and Kina he told reporters:Clearly I have become a has-been, a palimpsest, an epigone, a bloviating fossil. I find myself saying such things as: ...
Warning: This post contains references to sexual assaultOn Saturday, I spent far too long editing a video on Tim Jago, the ACT Party President and criminal, who has given up his fight for name suppression after 2 years. He voluntarily gave up just in time for what will be a ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is global warming ...
Our low-investment, low-wage, migration-led and housing-market-driven political economy has delivered poorer productivity growth than the rest of the OECD, and our performance since Covid has been particularly poor. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty this ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.As far as major government announcements go, a Three Ministers Event is Big. It can signify a major policy development or something has gone Very Well, or an absolute Clusterf**k. When Three Ministers assemble ...
One of those blasts from the past. Peter Dunne – originally neoliberal Labour, then leader of various parties that sought to work with both big parties (generally National) – has taken to calling ...
Completed reads for January: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson The Black Spider, by Jeremias Gotthelf The Spider and the Fly (poem), by Mary Howitt A Noiseless Patient Spider (poem), by Walt Whitman August Heat, by W.F. Harvey Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White The Shrinking Man, by Richard Matheson ...
Do its Property Right Provisions Make Sense?Last week I pointed out that it is uninformed to argue that the New Zealand’s apparently poor economic performance can be traced only to poor regulations. Even were there evidence they had some impact, there are other factors. Of course, we should seek to ...
Richard Wagstaff It was incredibly jarring to hear the hubris from the Prime Minister during his recent state of the nation address. I had just spent close to a week working though the stories and thoughts shared with us by nearly 2000 working people as part of our annual Mood ...
Odd fact about the Broadcasting Standards Authority: for the last few years, they’ve only been upholding about 5% of complaints. Why? I think there’s a range of reasons. Generally responsible broadcasters. Dumb complaints. Complaints brought under the wrong standard. Greater adherence to broadcasters’ rights to freedom of expression in the ...
And I said, "Mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone"'Cause I can't go outside, I'm scared I might not make it homeWell I'm alive, I'm alive, but I'm sinking inIf there's anyone at home at your place, darlingWhy don't you invite me in?Don't try to feed me'Cause I've been ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ star is on the rise, having just added the Energy, Local Government and Revenue portfolios to his responsibilities - but there is nothing ambitious about the Government’s new climate targets. Photo: SuppliedLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
It may have been a short week but there’s been no shortage of things that caught our attention. Here is some of the most interesting. This week in Greater Auckland On Tuesday Matt took a look at public transport ridership in 2024 On Thursday Connor asked some questions ...
The East Is Red: Journalists and commentators are referring to the sudden and disruptive arrival of DeepSeek as a second “Sputnik moment”. (Sputnik being the name given by the godless communists of the Soviet Union to the world’s first artificial satellite which, to the consternation and dismay of the Americans, ...
Hi,Back on inauguration day we launched a ridiculous RFK Jr. “brain worms” tee on the Webworm store, and I told you I’d be throwing my profits over to Mutual Aid LA and Rainbow Youth New Zealand. Just to show I am not full of shit, here are the receipts. I ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump over Gaza and Ukraine.Health expert and author David Galler ...
In an uncompromising paper Treasury has basically told the Government that its plan for a third medical school at Waikato University is a waste of money. Furthermore, the country cannot afford it. That advice was released this week by the Treasury under the Official Information Act. And it comes as ...
Back in November, He Pou a Rangi provided the government with formal advice on the domestic contribution to our next Paris target. Not what the target should be, but what we could realistically achieve, by domestic action alone, without resorting to offshore mitigation. Their answer was startling: depending on exactly ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guest David Patman and ...
I don't like to spend all my time complaining about our government, so let me complain about the media first.Senior journalistic Herald person Thomas Coughlan reported that Treasury replied yeah nah, wrong bro to Luxon's claim that our benighted little country has been in recession for three years.His excitement rose ...
Back in 2022, when the government was consulting internally about proactive release of cabinet papers, the SIS opposed it. The basis of their opposition was the "mosaic effect" - people being able to piece together individual pieces of innocuous public information in a way which supposedly harms "national security" (effectively: ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to stand firm and work with allies to progress climate action as Donald Trump signals his intent to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once again. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Jon Kroll and Aimee McCammon have been appointed to the New Zealand Film Commission Board, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “I am delighted to appoint these two new board members who will bring a wealth of industry, governance, and commercial experience to the Film Commission. “Jon Kroll has been an ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has hailed a drop in the domestic component of inflation, saying it increases the prospect of mortgage rate reductions and a lower cost of living for Kiwi households. Stats NZ reported today that inflation was 2.2 per cent in the year to December, the second consecutive ...
Two new appointed members and one reappointed member of the Employment Relations Authority have been announced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden today. “I’m pleased to announce the new appointed members Helen van Druten and Matthew Piper to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) and welcome them to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The weekend byelection in the outer suburban seat of Werribee saw the widely-anticipated slap-in-the-face to Victorian Labor, which is absolutely on the nose. The question is: to what degree were electors venting against federal Labor ...
Mediawatch -Trump's alarmed the world with trade tariffs, turning off aid and proposing to take over Gaza. But New Zealand's had diplomatic drama in the news too - with the media in the middle of it. ...
By Rachel Helyer Donaldson, RNZ News journalist New Zealand should be robust in its response to the “unacceptable” situation in Gaza but it must also back its allies against threats by the US President, says an international relations academic. Otago University professor of international relations Robert Patman said the rest ...
A Christchurch man who lost 55 relatives in three Israeli airstrikes on Gaza says his remaining family will never leave, despite a US proposal to remove them. ...
Asia Pacific Report A national Palestine advocacy group has hit back at critics of its “genocide hotline” campaign against soldiers involved in Israel’s war against Gaza, saying New Zealand should be actively following international law. The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) dismissed a “predictable lineup of apologists for Israel” for ...
ACT Party leader David Seymour said he wrote to police about the treatment of Philip Polkinghorne because it's an electorate MP's job to pass on the concerns of their constituents. ...
MEDIAWATCH:By Colin Peacock, RNZ Mediawatch presenter By the time US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on China and Canada last Monday which could kickstart a trade war, New Zealand’s diplomats in Washington, DC, had already been deployed on another diplomatic drama. Republican Senator Ted Cruz had said on social ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown says New Zealand is asking for too much oversight over its deal with China, which is expected to be penned in Beijing next week. Brown told RNZ Pacific the Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship was reciprocal. “They certainly did ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Byelections occurred on Saturday in the Victorian state seats of Prahran and Werribee. The Liberals gained Prahran from the Greens by a ...
A long time ago, Brian Turner wrote a poem in which, among the mountains, as he slept on a river flat … My speechless ancestors played like mice among my dreamsand he woke to the river running over my bed of stone. I have come to know that where a ...
Pacific Media Watch President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and ...
Otago University professor of international relations Robert Patman says New Zealand should provide a robust response to Donald Trump's Gaza plan, and also "should stop tip-toeing" around Trump. ...
The new minister of transport has opened the door for public consultation on at least some of the speed limit changes the government said would be automatic. ...
Officially, they’re called ‘memecoins,’ but Kōura Wealth founder Rupert Carlyon says the crypto world has another name for them: ‘shitcoins’.In digital finance, that phrase is used for tokens that have no true value – in essence, a money-grab.A few days before his inauguration, US President Donald Trump launched his own ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. Guy Williams has made a whole show off the joke that he is a “volunteer” journalist. So getting publicly owned by David Seymour while trying to act as a journalist is a good and timely reminder not to underestimate the nuance and ...
Many of Sāmoa’s beloved dishes are the result of cultural collaboration, writes Madeleine Chapman. All photos by Jin FelletIf you ever find yourself at a barbecue in a Sāmoan home, there’s 99% chance that sapasui (chop suey) will be on the table. For the past century, sapasui has ...
The funnyman takes us through his life in television, including Jono and Ben mayhem, live Telethon flubs, and funnelling all those experiences into his new comedy Vince. There’s an inciting incident in Three’s new comedy Vince where morning television presenter Vince Walters (Jono Pryor) is visiting sick kids in hospital ...
People often claim they just want Waitangi Day to be a celebration. At Waitangi, away from the headlined political acrimony and the marae ātea, celebrating is what most people are doing. The Spinoff Essay showcases the best essayists in Aotearoa, on topics big and small. Made possible by the generous ...
Is there anything more fashionable than a Māori get together? One of the best things about Northland is that nobody cares what they look like — probably because they’re all naturally more stylish than the rest of us, famously. Māori from the Far North, especially. In 27 degree heat, wearing ...
I’ve been in love with him since last July, but it’s only now in this tepid hotel room that I find myself wondering why. The first thing he does when we arrive is smoke a cone in the bathroom – he emerges, hacking up a lung, fists thrust into his ...
MONDAY“Name,” barked a representative of the lower orders.I regarded him with a look of stern disapproval, and told him from up high, “May I remind you that I have name suppression. I shall also thank you to ask with more respect as befits a former president of the Act Party, ...
Books of Mana: 180 Māori-Authored Books of Significance, edited by Jacinta Ruru, Angela Wanhalla and Jeanette Wikaira has just been released by Otago University Press. In this essay, Books are Taonga, Jeanette Wikaira explores her personal relationship to books and their value.For me, books are taonga. The knowledge ...
Get to know Tara, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Tara’s human for their support! Dog name: Tara Age: Two Breed: Mostly Border Collie and a little bit Catahoula Leopard dog If dog ...
Health NZ's CEO has resigned, but frontline healthworkers are sceptical that installing new leadership will make any difference to a system grappling with problems. ...
Health NZ's CEO has resigned, but frontline healthworkers are sceptical that installing new leadership will make any difference to a system grappling with problems. ...
Gail Duncan, Chairperson of the St Peter’s on Willis Social Justice Group, one of the organisations invited to submit on the Bill, says the Government’s actions are unprecedented. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amani Kasherwa, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Queensland In late January, a rebel group that has long caused mayhem in the sprawling African nation of Democratic Republic of Congo took control of Goma, a major city of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yee-Fui Ng, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University An ad falsely depicting independent candidate Alex Dyson as a Greens member.ABC News/Supplied The highly pertinent case of a little-known independent candidate in the Victorian seat of Wannon has exposed a gaping ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland Nik/Unsplash You might have heard that eating too many eggs will cause high cholesterol levels, leading to poor health. Researchers have examined the science behind this myth again, and ...
Everything you missed from the third day of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard four hours of oral submission. Read our recaps of day one of the hearings here, and day two here. Parliament was quiet on Friday for the third day of hearings on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Jeffries, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Western Sydney University Tijana Simic/Shutterstock The news last week that three people in Sydney were hospitalised with botulism after receiving botox injections has raised questions about the regulation of the cosmetic injectables industry. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jens Blotevogel, Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader for Remediation Technologies, CSIRO Mino Surkala, Shutterstock Lithium-ion batteries are part of everyday life. They power small rechargeable devices such as mobile phones and laptops. They enable electric vehicles. And larger versions store ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edith Jennifer Hill, Associate Lecturer, Learning & Teaching Innovation, Flinders University Netflix Netflix’s new limited series, Apple Cider Vinegar, tells the story of the elaborate cancer con orchestrated by Australian blogger Annabelle (Belle) Gibson. The first episode opens with Gibson’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dee Ninis, Earthquake Scientist, Monash University Greece’s government has just declared a state of emergency on the island of Santorini, as earthquakes shake the island multiple times a day and sometimes only minutes apart. The “earthquake swarm” is also affecting other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Western Australian state election will be held on March 8. A Newspoll, conducted January 29 to February 4 from a sample ...
NZ headed for a Triple Dip Recession – well this is what happens when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy and the Average Joe gets F**k All, I work in the retail fresh fruit and vegetable trade and your Average Joe does not have any surplus cash to put fresh fruit and vegetables on the table after they have paid the rent. Re Tax Cuts I get an extra $15.00 per week on a salary of $50k, not enough to put much extra fruit and vegetables on the table. Meanwhile our PM Christopher Luxton gets an additional $18k per annum, equivalent to $346.00 per week if I am correct. It ain't Rocket Science why we have poverty in NZ and the lower socio-economic groups are struggling. This poverty is also a factor driving Crime here in NZ, however most of the Poly's here in NZ have their heads in the sand like Ostrich's.
Not only $18K extra, but he can continue to take off mortgage interest payments of any investment properties he owns off his tax. With a property investment portfolio of $7mi, that's quite a bit of moolah.
Luxon only has 6 pads now sold one in Onehunga.
The poor bugger how will he survive?
Speaking of "when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy", the gummint saw fit to give "charity" status to billion dollar corporations, which means they don't pay a cent in tax. Two of these corporations are Ngai Tahu and Tainui. We also see these corporations extorting other business that need to re-apply for resource consent and have to pay the Taniwha tens of millions to billions of dollars for the privilege. Guess who ultimately pays for these excesses? Those that can least afford it as the costs are passed on, not absorbed by the business being extorted.
Solar powered devices?
When even the solar powered light in our garden could be a weapon, should we be worried?
How big a threat to us are our battery powered devices?
Can my laptop be hacked to make the lithium battery overheat, and burn my house down?
In a war between China and the US will our devices be on the front line?
Is anyone in the media investigating this problem?
If Hezbollah or Hamas had launched these attacks every resource available to our society would be invested in giving us the answer.
Afterall we already know how dangerous these devices can be, even with out evil intent.
With unintended spontaneous cockpit fires and E bike explosions.
Is this how World War III will start?
Thanks to the Israeli Butchers exploding pagers and two way radios, a huge issue has appeared for the tech and device industry and by obvious implication for users and the authorities.
International supply lines are involved in the production of devices, lines that can now be seen able to be breached for nefarious purposes. Will air carriers get the shakes about mobiles on board? Will any number of businesses look sideways at mobiles on their premises…will mobile users (say Palestine solidarity supporters) themselves become wary…
After todays attacks it doesn't seem like it's sabotage of equipment. It's just too many different types of devices – it's just seems like too wide-ranging a supply line to infiltrate.
In my opinion, it is most likely that they have changed some firmware code controlling battery controllers.
Battery controllers for rechargeable batteries are finicky things, pretty complex code lumps of code to control charging, discharging, and temperature responses. It isn’t that hard to remove safeguards if you read the programming manuals. The last manual I read on a battery controller for Lithium ion batteries was about 200 pages of dense settings.
I have blown up one Lithium ion batteries by accident during charging when I have been writing settings for a battery controller.
I don’t imagine that it is that hard to force a fast discharge causing a high temperatures. Probably targeting one of the families of battery controllers firmware. And modern batteries have extremely high energy densities.
All that would be required is to write code to talk to a controller, get it installed in a pager over the radio as a update, auto-install it, and then provide a online trigger to initiate it.
Odds that the culprits inserted modified batteries into the supply chain?
What do we know about Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions?
The walkie-talkies that exploded had new batteries that had arrived in a recent shipment and had been distributed to a narrower range of Hezbollah members than the pagers, people familiar with the matter said. Hezbollah members said some of the explosions on Wednesday were stronger than those in the pager attack. Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people were killed and more than 300 were wounded in Wednesday’s explosions.
https://archive.li/TMLv6 (wsj)
This would make any and every device a potential bomb.
.
B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html?unlocked_article_code=1.L04.QuJ0.eV6zIo_wjZrR&smid=url-share
Urrgh. The worst possible case. Explode and that will thermally overload the battery which would also burn of explode. I'd guess that they would trigger through a signal from the radio device passed to the battery controller. You'd just have to hook up one of the many extra lines to the controller.
The batteries are also hermetically sealed against leakage from the battery cells. So you wouldn't get a explosive smell trace. The seal is also designed to expand because that is what lithium batteries do as they deteriorate – that would help to make the explosion more violent from containment.
And with little strategic purpose…
.
“This might well be the first and frightening glimpse of a world in which ultimately no electronic device, from our cellphones to thermostats, can ever be fully trusted,” Glenn Gerstell, the general counsel of the National Security Agency for five critical years as the cyberwars heated up, said on Wednesday.
“We’ve already seen Russia and North Korea unleash cyberweapons over which they had no control, which indiscriminately damaged random computers around the globe,” he said. “Could other personal and household devices be next?”
If Mr. Gerstell is right, it raises the question of whether these attacks, widely attributed to Israel’s intelligence services, were worth the price in our shared sense of vulnerability. The explosions had little strategic purpose. As one Western diplomat with long experience dealing with the Middle East said, they were hardly about to force Hezbollah’s leaders to give up a cause they have battled over for four decades.
https://archive.li/bqFSN#selection-983.0-1001.423 (nyt)
My brain kind of switches off as soon as I read a manual but I do like how people have skills like this. Not for what happened here, but it's interesting.
War is just very sad all round and unbearable in many regards. We are the 1% when compared to so many countries and I wish we spent more time appreciating it – rather than being gaslit into poverty and culture wars by some in power.
If I were in Lebanon I wouldn't want to be carrying around a cellphone in my pocket right now or getting near a television or computer.
I feel that the Israelis have something else planned and I'm sure it won't be pleasant.
But it does raise the question: what else can be tampered with to cause injury and destruction? and what if Putin and Kim Jung Un got hold of the means to do this?
I am sure it is a preemptive strike, either to disrupt Hazbollah plans if they were about to do something, or to prepare for an Israeli invasion, as Ad points out below.
Either way, looking beyond the nastiness of it, it is a very effective strategy in either scenario.
Will there be any international investigation into how and where these supply lines were breached?
Will any effort be made to identify the operatives who carried out this so called "sensitive operation"?
Will anyone be held accountable?
Like so many other Zionist atrocities before it, will Israel's impunity see this latest atrocity being deliberately and systematically swept under the carpet?
Will the news cycle move on?|
Despite the dire implications of this new form of warfare will this shocking event go uninvestigated?
Where were, and how were, the supply line breaches made?
Is it possible for Russia to call on its Chinese ally to help it launch a similar attack against Ukraine?
Well, American top security people are very tight lipped at the moment as to implicating Israel, I’m just following media channel reports so far, but it appears a batch of Taiwanese pagers were sent to a possibly bogus Hungarian company set up by Mossad to do the explosive installs.
Will anyone be held accountable–yes, but not the Israeli butchers!
I'm reading it as a an Israeli controlled front did the deal to supply devices manufactured and sold by a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting, which had a license to use the Taiwanese brand on the pagers.
More on the BAC Consulting story.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/18/g-s1-23547/tracking-the-exploding-pagers-used-in-attack-on-hezbollah
Thanks for the informative link Matiri.
To add to the mystery here's another story from a former Israeli operative with the 'secret Israeli weapons division’ describing the preparation:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/350421367/secrets-mossads-fearsome-reputation-revealed-ex-israeli-intelligence-officers
Fascinating article.
Fascinating?
Sounds, a little more like misdirection to me.
If this wasn't a misdirection, which country's customs service is this anonymous spook alluding to?
Hungary? Lebanon?
Were the customs officers allegedly involved, bribed or coerced by Mosad, and no other customs employees in their dempartment noticed?
The other alternative, the customs officers were ordered to divert these pagers by their government employer?
And nobody in the government bureaucracy's chain of command, who may have been a little bit uncomfortable at this order, got wind of this operation and leaked it?
Really?
Smells like bullshit to me.
Just a little too convenient, and a way bit far fetched.
We have one name: Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono
From the link supplied by Matiri:
$320?
Fancy that. A not for profit electronics company that only makes pagers.
Can we expect that a certain 'Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono', is being sought by interpol for questioning, with her description at every airport?
Probably not.
Israel's impunity makes sure that Western authorities including police and security forces will look the other way.
Who is Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono?
An A4 sheet on a glass door, sounds the definition of a front company.
British-educated businesswoman Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono (Facebook)
From the Independent 12 hours ago:
I consider that a handful of ex Mossad and related agency officers know a damn sight more than you or I how Mossad operates. That was the intent of the item I linked to. Nothing more nor less.
You on the other hand have chosen to interpret it as a pro-Mossad piece rather than an educative and factual piece of writing which was both informative and revealing.
I am sure they do. I am also pretty sure that they are very unlikely to tell us.how they operate.
No, I just think that their version is unlikely, And I said why.
I think it is unlikely that Customs officers were bribed or coerced to divert a shipment of pagers without it being noticed by someone else. Even more so, if they were ordered to do so by their superiors.
I might add that more and more and evidence is leading back to BAC, rather than border Customs of some unamed country.
However, I would be interested to look at anythiing Mossad comes up with, that they wan to to add, to back up their vierson, that it was Customs.
Which Customs? Of which Country? would be a good start.
Who is Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono?
‘
Calling Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy/Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono
‘
But all jokes aside, under international law, boobytrapping civilian devices is a war crime.
The ICC prosecutor Karim Khan may yet be adding another name to his list of alleged war criminals that he has applied to the ICC for arrest warrants for.
Lebanon is a not a signatory to the Rome Statute, but Hungary is.
Presumably if an arrest warrant for Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono is issued, the Hungarian secret service would have to hand her over to the Hague for trial.
So will the weird individual with the Hollywood film star looks, and the double barralled surname, and the padded CV, ever see the inside of a court room?
While the Taiwanese authorities may be taking this act of terrorism seriously, the authorities of the Western powers, not so much.
The ICC while swift to act to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching freight train load of Western disaproval to any challenge to Israel's impunity, the ICC have become paralysed. A paralysis from which they may never salvage enough credibility to ever issue an arrest warrant against anyone ever again, not even Yahya Sinwar.
The next 9/11 is coming.
Its not a matter of if.
Its just a matter of when.
… 23 years and counting.
Maybe the anti-terror security architecture we all rely on is working.
23 years?
Hitler festered about the Jews from 1915 and took action 25 years later in 1940.
There are now millions of Muslim Hitlers out there planning revenge.
The Jews became the most hated people in the world before the Nazis
with the support of all Western European Christian lowered the boom.
6 million Jews were not so smart between 1940 and 1944.
The Jews are on the way to becoming the most hated people in the world again.
Its gonna be 1940-1944 deja Jew all over again."
6 Muslims with two knives brought down the entire USA defence system. at 9/11.
Who will protects the millions of USA travellers when they are over seas?
In the last month a couple of old blokes have beaten the USA security system
just abut knocking out Trump.
Another big one is coming.
Will be great viewing
You are on thin ice with that kind of comment…
Oh really? What hateful things to say. No place for nazi fans here !
Disgusting comment
Koina, plenty of vids on youtube on Treblinka, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck etc for your "great viewing" . Your post is abhorrent.
Is that it … is it a curious bird … more questions than answers …
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=koina+meaning+maori
9/11 was to provoke the PNAC to action, because they needed regime change to create the vacuum for Islamic State (but Iran backed Shia rule Iraq and Syria now – what a defeat for both al Qaeda and PNAC).
Today the divide is between those who want Israeli permanent rule of the WB and defeat of Israel. Will both lose, if there is a two state peace?
Some good news for Aucklanders with an electricity account, the Entrust dividend of $350 is being paid over the next few days. If you receive it by direct credit, it may be in your bank a/c now. Some people have it credited to their electricity a/c.
Entrust dividend: Who’s in line for the $350 payout – NZ Herald
We also note that the Entrust Election is always held at the same time the dividend is paid out.
An Entrust I want would use the dividend to buy back the 25% of shares in the NZ sharemarket …
… then hand the while thing as a CCO to Auckland Council. And ACC rates would go down.
I want them to spend more $$$ undergrounding power lines instead of carving out big "V for Vector" cuts in the middle of the street trees to maintain the required clearances for the power lines. It is a tragedy that they did not piggyback off the other works being done on Hendon Ave with the new housing developments there. The street trees are great and an important part of the streetscape.
Pity about the network having $12m foregone infrastructure investment for ticket clippers who do absolutely zero toward the security of electricity supply get reelected.
It looks to me that the exploding communication devices amongst Hezbollah operatives is a preemptive strike.
From what I have read, Hezbollah received the pagers about five months ago. Perhaps the Israelis set this up so they could disrupt Hezbollah's plans if they were about to do something major.
This type of action is within the Israeli MO. For example in the Six Day War the Israelis undertook a preemptive strike against the Egyption air force and took out most of their planes befoe they even got off the ground.
You don't make the move of blinding your enemy unless you're preparing for war.
Israel's 98th Division is now on the border, and is believed to include thousands of troops, including paratrooper infantry units and artillery and elite commando forces specially trained for operations behind enemy lines.
7 October will be the 1-year anniversary. Under 3 weeks from now.
Blinding the enemy in the middle of the fight would be an ace up the sleeve, too.
Israel decided to blow up the pager devices carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday out of concern its secret operation might have been discovered by the group, three U.S. officials told Axios.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/18/hezbollah-pager-explosions-israel-suspicions
The USA does not want Israel to start a war. And Hezbollah knows starting one when Lebanese hospitals are over-run would place its forces at risk.
I intend to agree, this has all the hallmarks of a classic, 'softening up operation'
This attack seems to have combined all four of these various softening up tactics.
Step #1. May not have exactly been an artillery attack, sometimes it's not. But it did involve explosives.
In WW1 and the American Civil War, tunnels were sometimes secretly dug under enemy lines and packed with explosives, That were detonated to soften up a target just before the main assault. This attack is not too disimilar. differing only in not lieterally being an underground operation.
Steps, 2, 3, and 4 are selfe explanatory, and were all achieved by this one assualt.
The Israelis got intell a year before the Oct 7 attack. Those above said it was too ambitious for Hamas to realise. 6 months before they got intell of Hamas training for the attack. Again it was dismissed.
The biggest intelligence and IDF failure in their history.
The attack came 50 years after 1973 (Yom Kippur war – they knew an attack was coming – but the Americans said if they acted first they would not be supplied with arms).
An attack 50 years later fits the black September timing of attacks at "harvest time" because of the nature of the Jewish calendar (Sept/Oct harvest month – and there is historic significance to Oct 7 as well, in 2023 the first sabbath day after sukkoth – ending on the Friday Oct 6).
For mine, this is a pre-empting of any Hezbollah attack on Oct 7 2024, or Sukkoth later in the month.
Bravado 101, a warning that any war will involve stuff Iran has not warned them about. Iran itself, not being a safe place for pro Hamas Arabs to visit.
As our local fan of all things Rainbow (Dec 2016 UNSC decision hate speech against McCully) puts it.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/
They get tech to spy on their citizens.
People sometimes forget that many Arabs (and Turks) see Iran as having a hegemon ambition, exploiting Israel to pose as leader of the Moslem world. The Arab League (and Turkey) position is now a two state outcome, Iran is the outlier.
An attack on those planning a Galilee operation like the one last year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y9wyy9pr2o
There got to be more than what matches the eye here. Hamas have apparently had them for 5 months but it stretches the imagination that no one has changed a battery or tried to fix one and gone ‘ hang on, what’s this ‘ , 5 months and thousands of devices.. makes no sense. Also the sabotaging of household battery walls is just shitfuckery of the highest order.
It was probably code that sets the settings on the battery controller chip (or any power controller chip). Those things come in families and they get used in a wide variety of devices. Almost every device that stores and releases power uses controller chips or boards to make sure that the power in charged or discharged at a safe rate and that their energy store doesn’t overheat.
In lithium-ion type batteries, every one that you plug into a device has a battery controller of a particular type or type family inside the battery casing. It carries the settings allowing safe charging, discharging, and temperatures. You can typically reprogram those settings from code in the device itself.
It is usual to update code on most remote devices via comms. I’ve written a lot of code using internet, wifi, bluetooth, satellite, radio, ethernet, usb, jtag and just straight serial to update devices. Pretty hard to find a nasty even if you actually have the source code and compile it yourself. That is why remote updates or installation need a secure review / build / supply chain.
The internet is full of videos of lithium batteries bursting into fire, (which may be what gave Mossad the idea) Many of these fires have been caused by incorrect charging. ie using a different brand charger for a different brand battery. Proving the point that incorect charging parameters that could possibly be altered remotely, could cause communication devices with these batteries to catch fire.
But Mossad may have wanted more.
Rather than just catching fire, BBC footage shows percussive explosions. Which lends credence to the speculation that a small amount of high explosive had been inserted into these devices.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cdenk2721p8o
Adding more weight to the theory that explosives were inserted in these devices.
From AP, despite quoting an anonymous source, to make this report. AP are considered an authoritive journal of record AP. So I give it some weight. But make of it what you will. Personally I don’t think the journos whose names I have left in, are trying to mislead us. Like most journalists I know they are trying to do a good job to the best of their ability. Often under trying circumstances. Often they can’t reveal the identity of their sources.
(Generally, whenever I post a link, I try to mak a point to include the names of real people authors, and journos, I do this because I don't believe the conspiracy theorists that all journalists working in the Mainstream Media are corruptted liars.)
Can we expect a blanket ban on all electronic devices being taken on to planes?
The current CAA rules:
Unitended Consequences
After 9/11 when box cutters were used to hijack planes and bring down the Twin Towers, you weren't even allowed to take nail clippers with you on to a plane,
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-nail-clippers-not-allowed-on-planes#:~:text=Although%20nail%20clippers%20are%20not,and%20prevent%20any%20potential%20threats.
When every portable device is now a potential bomb, will we see the same sort of blanket ban?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentaerythritol_tetranitrate
Probably.
.
Beirut airport and some Middle East airlines have banned passengers from carrying certain electronic devices following the shock attacks on electronic devices in Lebanon which left 32 dead and thousands badly injured.
Lebanon's aviation authority said on Thursday that all passengers would be barred from carrying walkie-talkies and pagers on flights from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport.
https://www.newarab.com/news/mena-airlines-ban-walkie-talkies-pagers-after-lebanon-blasts
It’s certainly a massive security breach for Hezbullah and Hamas, I could imagine a handful of devices being swapped for ones with the explosive device, but numbers are in the thousands. Now today we are hearing about other communications devices exploding.
If Israel were to invade southern Lebanon, It would make sense for the Israelis to control the pagers and communication equipment remotely, while intercepting messages and feeding misinformation, not destroying them.
This is something different, it may be part of an internal civil war within Hezbollah and other Palestinian organisations. There will be other regional players involved, not including the US, China, Russia or the UK.
We all know that the US backs Israel, and takes the flak accordingly.
So how is it that Iran gets a free pass. They’re the ones supporting, and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. With Iran’s avowed intent to wipe Israel off the face of the map, is it surprising that Israel takes the fight to their proxies?
"We all know that the US backs Israel, and takes the flak accordingly."
What does that "flak" look like.
I venture the US gets off scot free.
We are told Auckland real estate values are now at 4 year low, falling below $1 million.
No worries for real estate agents though, cos of the way their commission structure operates.
It appears that a third wave of exploding electronic devices is unfolding in Lebanon.
Not just portable devices, but any internet connected device can be laced with undetectable PETN and remotely detonated.
Apparently some Lebanese retailers have been buying electronic goods including solar panels from Israel because they are cheaper.
Lebanon’s official news agency confirms solar energy systems exploded in Beirut
The video appears to show the front of a cell phone retail shop blown out.